Elly Kedward

Elly Kedward (1729 - February, 1785) was an Irish woman who was banished from the town of Blair after several local people accused her of witchcraft. Although her acts of witchcraft were allegedly evil in nature (she had taken small drops of blood from the local children by pricking their fingers with a very small sewing needle possibly to examine a new, unidentified illness which she had discovered) the townspeople acted towards her in a way which, if possible, was even more evil than anything Elly could accomplish. They pounced on her, accusing her of being a dirty prostitute and being too reclusive and using her religion as a Catholic (the Blair residents were Protestants).

Banishment of Elly Kedward from the town of Blair.

After being convicted of witchcraft, the townspeople tied Elly Kedward to a sledge and dragged her out into the woods in what was the harshest winter in human history. The townspeople led her blindfolded into the woods and tied her to a tree. There they set about abusing her, cutting all sorts of signs into her which labelled her as a witch, then the citizens pressed their palms into her wounds, and finally they left her by the tree, but they still kept coming out into the woods to see if she was dead. They kept on physically abusing her until they saw she was still alive and set their dogs on her, which tore at her flesh. Then they saw she had survived every form of human torture which she could undergo and finally they left her hanging by her neck in the branches of her execution tree.

Everyone believed she had died and that the witch had been punished, but her spirit was doomed not to rest: her ghost returned the following winter and abducted half the town's children from Blair.

A year later, children were disappearing in the same woods randomly. Afterwards, everyone fled the village of Blair, Maryland thinking Elly Kedward came back to life to haunt the village. Half the town disappeared and it became a ghost town.